


there's all sorts of shapes (that I bet you can make)

by Mia_Zeklos



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Author Is Sleep Deprived, Banned Together Bingo, Exhibitionism, F/M, Fuck the Man as the main driving trope in several ways, I've definitely said this before but here we go again, Mutual Pining, Office Sex, Rumours, This has 0 redeeming qualities, alluded to if not precisely present, mild power play if you squint very hard, post-chapter 14 pre-chapter 15, very mild and from an outsider's POV but it is present, which is the only excuse for this that I have, wildly inconsistent with the tone of where the show last left us fyi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-10
Updated: 2020-12-10
Packaged: 2021-03-10 16:26:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28000122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mia_Zeklos/pseuds/Mia_Zeklos
Summary: From everything he'd heard on his way back to Nevarro, Din's made up a rather unpleasant mental picture of Cara's new position and the restrictions it imposes on her. Little by little, he breaks through them all.
Relationships: Din Djarin/Cara Dune
Comments: 10
Kudos: 53
Collections: Banned Together Bingo 2020





	there's all sorts of shapes (that I bet you can make)

**Author's Note:**

> I couldn't get that line about rumours out of my head after last episode. Where has Din been hearing those from? Who has he been asking? How do they even spread in the GFFA? Who is invested enough for him to be able to land on Nevarro with all the hottest new gossip already in mind? So many questions.
> 
> Anyway! I am genuinely posting this so that it can be out of my hair before the new episode airs and (extremely likely) makes it obsolete. It is neither proof-read or in any way, you know, structurally sound or appropriate, and I have (hopefully) much better things in the works, but it won't let me rest until it is out in the world. Serves as a square for my Banned Together Bingo card, specifically for _Fuck the Man_. Title from [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PyoxMSEHYI).
> 
> As always, feedback is most appreciated and I hope you guys enjoy it!

The walk to the ship is short and quiet and Cara only dares to break the anxious silence reigning between them when she realises that she’s being led to a ship that definitely isn’t the one she’d last seen Din in.

“What happened to the Crest?”

“It’s a long story,” he says, gesturing her in. A deep sigh follows as they climb the ladder, as if the toll this day had clearly taken is finally making itself known. “I can tell you most of it on our way to prison.”

The dry, despairing hint of humour in his voice forces a nervous bout of laughter out of her just as Cara reaches the top and is immediately welcomed by two curious faces. “We need to pick Greef up first. He’ll be there in a second; he was just off of Nevarro for a few days.”

“Give me the coordinates and we’ll bring him on board,” the woman in front of her says before Din can as much as speak. “You must be Cara, then.” She frowns at the nod of affirmation that the guess gets her, seemingly sizing her up before declaring, “I’m Fennec Shand. You look different in the holos.”

She won’t be introducing her friend for the time being, then. Cara can live with that. “I get that a lot.” She takes her largest blaster off from where it’s hanging across her back and lays it down, tentatively setting herself next to it a moment later. There really isn’t that much space at all, so when she sees Din follow her example from the corner of her eyes, she’s not particularly surprised. “Didn’t even know there _were_ holos until recently.”

The ceremony where she’d officially accepted her new position had been filmed, as a citizen back on Nevarro had informed her not long ago. For what purpose, she’s not sure, though there are plenty of guesses to be made – it must look good to the general populace for a veteran to decide to keep serving the Galaxy, perhaps, and she’d been used as the day’s piece of heartwarming news – but since then, it’d been mentioned more than once.

“I wouldn’t have either, but your friend here—”

“I was trying to track you down,” Din cuts off sharply. Even with the helmet on, it sounds like he’s speaking through gritted teeth. “No one would tell me anything other than the spiciest details of your new job position.” He nods towards the vast array of weapons strapped to her body with the same air of accusation that his previous observation had carried when he’d thrown her badge back at her. _You’ve gone legit_. It had sounded like she’d betrayed him. Worse, it had _felt_ like she’d betrayed him on her end, too, somehow, and it’s stupid – she hadn’t known he’d been in trouble – but it bothers her more than she’s willing to admit. “Those things count as benefits from the New Republic, _Marshall_?”

“Sure do.” Despite her fear – the same one she can feel coming off of him in waves – Cara finds herself smiling. “Who have you been listening to?”

Because really, her social circle isn’t that vast at all. Other than Din, Karga, her fellow soldiers and a few locals from Nevarro, there shouldn’t be anyone invested enough in her existence to feed him information.

“Your adventures in the Outer Rim make people _talk_ ,” he says and Cara looks away from their bemused companions to pin him under her stare instead, but to her surprise, Din doesn’t back away. It really _is_ an extraordinarily cramped ship. “You’re a bit of a local celebrity. An inspiration for the masses, apparently.”

She can’t help the disbelieving snort that _that_ idea brings out of her and Din eyes her with his usual faceless disapproval, reserved for when he thinks he knows where her train of thought is taking her and doesn’t particularly like its direction. “Today marks the second time I’m deliberately making myself go missing in the line of duty. Some inspiration.”

“You sell yourself short.” It’s almost _irritating_ , the fact that he’s doubling down on making her take him seriously, and Cara narrows her eyes when he shrugs her doubt away. “At least two worlds are better off for having you there, now.”

“And you, for that matter. I wasn’t alone there.” For a fleeting moment, she wonders if he’s seeing her the way she sees him – a flash of lighting piercing through a foggy night, blinding and illuminating the whole world for the split second it’s there. It would certainly explain a few things about them both.

He must have arrived to the same conclusion – another sigh follows, this time relieved. “No, you weren’t.”

You’re not alone now, either, Cara almost says, but this is bigger than returning a favour, bigger than any world they’d made better with each other’s help, and plus, he already knows. She’s sure of it when she looks at him again – few things in the Galaxy are as certain as this, and it feels set in stone. He knows.

It’s why he’d come to her in the first place, after all; it must be why he keeps seeking her out, too.

~.~

It’s days after it all blows over – days after they’d found the kid and had fled as soon as possible, since at its weakest, the Empire is still bigger than a team he’d barely scrapped together in the matter of a day – that Din finds himself back on Nevarro. The terror keeping everything inside him knotted together ever since he’d seen Grogu grasped in that droid’s hold, propelled upwards into an unknown future is finally starting to come undone and it’s the strangest sensation – relief and bone-deep exhaustion and giddy excitement at the fact that the kid is back in the relative safety that his hands provide and the slow, gradual realisation that he has nowhere to go.

No matter how he looks at them, his circumstances aren’t ideal – Fennec and Boba Fett had taken their leave as soon as they’d made sure their dept had been paid and he, Cara and Greef had found themselves in a hotwired ship they’d nicked off of Moff Gideon’s star destroyer, with its navigation destroyed to bits to make sure that they wouldn’t be tracked. He turns towards his co-pilot, as if she could possibly give him any sort of direction, and sees her equally queasy expression as they lower the ship towards the city he knows so well.

She must have felt his eyes on her, because Cara looks up, defeat written in her every gesture. “Duty calls.”

It’s then that he sees the commotion at the makeshift entrance of the city, in the shape of a man and a woman in full uniform arguing with a droid clearly denying them access, and he’s unspeakably relieved when Karga speaks up just as they touch the ground.

“We can smuggle you in if you want to wait a while before finding a new ship. Plenty of space for you and the kid until someone answers that message you think he sent to the other Jedi. Marshall?”

“On it, boss,” Cara quips, springing out of her seat as if it’s burned her and climbing off the ship before anyone else can even try to catch up.

For all of a moment, it’s quiet in the cockpit. Din can’t take it a second longer. “You’re really going to leave her alone with them?”

“I’m not her keeper. If she wants to be a soldier, let her go be a soldier.” He shrugs, but the disapproval shines through anyway. “I want nothing to do with the government officials she has to report to.”

Din curses under his breath. It is a stupid idea, but still so entirely like her – to have a new beginning handed to her in the form of her cleared chain code and land herself directly in the arms of the people who had disappointed her so much the last time around. He’s not her keeper either, of course, but it’s still—

There’s a long-suffering sigh behind him, and then, “Hand me the kid.”

“What?”

“New Republic or not, you can’t let them see him. He’s been back with you for days now; he’ll be fine for a few minutes. Go after her.”

He doesn’t wait to be asked twice.

~.~

“—to once again empathise the importance of asking for back-up.” The woman, with a severe face and too much hand-waving at her disposal, has already picked up speed by the time Din comes out of the ship and nears the city’s gates. “We don’t expect our agents – especially our only one in the Outer Rim for now – to handle ex-Imperials on their own.”

“I wasn’t on my own, officer,” Cara says, voice almost laughably contrite when paired with the clear defiance in her eyes. “But I’ll keep that in mind when they make their way into my territory again.” She turns towards the man, expression shifting into something much more open, and he perks up immediately, as if startled out of a trance. Din can’t blame him. “While the Magistrate and I came out unscathed, the material damage is going to take its toll around here unless we do something about it. I’ll send our requests along with my report.”

“I’ll make sure to pass it along to our engineers. We’ll see what we can do.” The officer’s eyes wander up to Din, as if he has no desire to ask but definitely wants to know. He does his best not to stand on edge. “You mentioned you weren’t alone. Has your— friend—”

“Nothing to do with the fight, I assure you.” Cara lets loose one of _those_ smiles – the kind that could melt a supernova with next to no effort – and then turns to him with practiced indifference. “The citizens of Nevarro just need a little assistance sometimes; it’s what I’m here for. Come on, Mando. You coming or not?”

Among many other things, the helmet is a small blessing when it comes to this, too – sometimes, he can’t help but laugh and he really shouldn’t encourage her, but, “Yes, Marshall.”

~.~

Cara beams up at him as soon as her office’s door clicks locked behind them and Din is able to breathe for the first time since they’d landed, something tender and dangerous blooming in his chest as she hops up to sit herself on the edge of her desk, arms open in an exaggerated victorious display. “See? Being legit is not all bad.”

“The New Republic doesn’t seem to like unauthorised missions much, does it? Doesn’t fall in line with the protocol.”

He’s still got the vague, uneasy feeling he’d got when he’d first seen that ridiculous badge that’s now permanently pinned to her chest – as if they had stolen her away, or stolen her _back_ , when he’d only just found her. It’s neither a fair nor a respectful thing to think, considering that her choice had always been hers alone, but he still feels an unjustified amount of triumph surge through him when she shrugs.

“Fuck the protocol. I’m assigned here to help the Outer Rim out, not play the diplomat with officers who haven’t spent a whole day out off of Coruscant yet. My only real supervisor wouldn’t mind.” He almost asks, but she doesn’t give him the chance. “But hey, at least they’re easy to get money out of, right? With a bit of luck, I’ll get you your ship back. It won’t be the _exact_ one, but it’d be rude to look a gifted—”

“Close your eyes,” Din interrupts before she’d had the chance to finish her spiel and that cocky smile that he loves so much – _loves_ , no matter how dangerous that particular word feels after everything he’s been through recently – morphs into confusion.

“What for?”

“Just close them.” Puzzled but intrigued, Cara follows orders, and he checks the door again before removing his helmet in one swift move and striding closer. Slipping directly into her space is easy, as easy as breathing, and _her_ breathing picks up at the proximity once she feels it, her open arms falling on his shoulders, her thighs and inviting warmth around his own. He stays like that for a moment or two, relishing in how perfect this feels – how good of a match she seems to be to him, even on this most basic level – and by the time he gathers the courage to kiss her, she’s already met him halfway.

It feels like the distant memory of the sea on a hot day – like relief and joy and sunshine on overheated skin; like a rush of adrenaline and feeling weightless and untouchable and _alive_. Cara gasps against his mouth and it’s so intolerably _sweet_ that he presses even closer against her, working desperately to undo her impossible belt. He had never meant to go this far this fast and she pulls away with a laugh, eyes clenched shut but face painted with the sort of joy he hadn’t realised he’d craved to see on her. It’s a breathtaking sight.

“Feeling forward today, are we?” The teasing would make him snap out of it, usually, but not with her: the purr of her voice is all the invitation he could ask for.

“ _Today_ ,” Din scoffs, relishing in the way her smile only grows wider. “I would’ve tried it from the get go the last time I landed here in a broken down ship, only to have you show me a town you’d rebuilt from scratch, if we’d had any time _at all_.”

“We have time now,” Cara says idly, letting go of him to lean back on one hand while the other sneaks blindly between them, fingers tangling with his until the mechanism of her belt snaps off.

“That we do.”

This go around, they have all the time in the world.

~.~

After all the training and lessons and field exercises he had had to endure to get to the position he has, Fanus Maru thinks as he navigates through the lava flats on Nevarro, had been in vain. No one in the Outer Rim cares about anything that comes even close to what he’d been taught, practicality and blunt honesty when it comes to their needs overwhelming any delicacy that their trade deals and negotiations could have ever had. He had hoped that now that they’re governed – or pretending to be governed, at least – something would change.

He’d been wrong.

The muffled voices – laughter followed by the kind of sound he’d rather not associate with any public building – seeping in from under the door of the local Marshall’s office would have been enough to deter him from entering anywhere else, but this had been delayed long enough. Perhaps there’d been a mistake and she would correct her demand once he pointed it out, but from every interaction he’d had with the woman so far, he doesn’t dare hope for anything so merciful.

“Come in,” the familiar voice calls out, a bit less steady than usual, when he knocks and Officer Maru of the New Republic makes his way in tentatively. She seems to be alone, surprisingly, primly seated in her place like she rarely ever is. There’s no sign of the erratic energy that the room had barely contained whenever he’d visited before, replaced with an almost eerie silence. Dune nods him in encouragingly, her smile wavering around the edges. She’s still – _too_ still, and her boots aren’t the first thing he sees when he comes in, _and_ she’s surrounded by a pile of paperwork so tall that it feels unorthodox even to him – and for a moment, Fanus lets himself hope.

“Marshall Dune.”

“Officer Maru.” One hand, trembling lightly, waves him towards the empty seat on the other side of her massive desk. “I didn’t expect you this soon.”

“Requests for replacements of damaged equipment take some time, usually, yes,” he allows, tentatively lowering himself in it. It screeches rather ominously, and it takes him a moment to realise that the noise had come from the desk in front of him rather than the chair. “Speaking of replacements—”

“It’s fine.” There’s an odd glint to her eyes, as if she’s either going to cry or burst out laughing. “Everything is— fine.” Dune fidgets in her place for a moment, fingers clawing at the already abused wooden tabletop, valiantly meeting his eyes again once she manages to compose herself. “You’re here about the ship.”

“I am, actually.” He glances down at his datapad yet again to make sure he’d read the file correctly. “You sent a request for a gunship earlier today.”

“Mmm.” She offers a dazzling smile to his questioning look. “Is there a problem?”

“It’s just that,” he fishes for anything that might sound less offensive than any of the first words that come to mind and promptly fails. “It’s an antique, really. If you’re short on transport, I’m sure we can provide something more efficient – and a lot cheaper.”

“I know, it’s a wreck of a model.” The hand that had kept her braced against the desk curls into a fist and for a brief, terrible moment he thinks he’s about to end up on the wrong end of the righteous anger that apparently brings the leftover Imperials of the Outer Rim to heel. She squeezes her eyes shut and the moment passes, but she sounds no less tortured for it. “You see, I don’t have a ship of my own here. It was borrowed from a friend and he can be a bit thorough about,” another shiver, “things he gives to people—”

“Are you all right, Marshall?” She’d been looking a bit red in the face when he’d come in which, for a woman seemingly unruffled by anything, is a feat, but it’s decidedly more intense now. “Is there anything—”

“I’m fine!” She reassures, something like panic creeping into her tone. “Everything is fine! _As I was saying_ , he’s not on the best of terms with the New Republic and it can be difficult to get in touch – stupid, really, you know how important the work you all do for us here— Dank farrik!”

He looks out towards the window at the sound of a scuffle of some kind, but there’s no one there; just yet another precarious creak from the desk’s general direction and then the unmistakable sound of Dune’s boot stomping down on the worn floorboards, followed by a huff in a pitch that could _not_ have possibly been produced by her.

Then again, “I’m sorry, Officer,” she says, the flush blooming on her cheekbones now almost reaching her hairline, but that constant, smug smile that he’s never seen her without persists. “I think I’m coming down with— with something—” _Oh_. It all clicks, finally. _Feverish_ would be a good description of the way she looks right about now, but she soldiers on. “The ship would really be a _tremendous_ help, so if you could—”

“Yes. Yes, of course.” It still feels like a wild bantha chase, given the sort of technology she could have access to with the resources of the New Republic, but who is he to deny the requests of a woman who has so clearly suffered for the cause just hours ago? “I’ll see what I can do. You’ll make a full recovery, I’m sure.”

“I’m sure,” she echoes, and as Fanus backs away from the room, the ‘Thank you, Officer,’ that follows gets lost in yet another shudder. He could have imagined it – _must_ have, really, since that she had been all alone in the office – but a far more muted, ‘Thank you, Marshall’ seems to follow right after.

Without truly meaning to, he hurries his pace. The sooner he’s back on the ship, the sooner he can head home. The Outer Rim tends to make him nostalgic for _that_ rather quickly.

~.~

The space under Cara’s desk is somehow an even tighter fit than their trip with Boba Fett’s ship had been and Din hadn’t been too pleased to be shoved under it in a hurry as soon as the delegate had arrived, but – given their activities just minutes prior – he’d been happy enough to occupy himself otherwise. Now, as he wipes his mouth clean with the back of his hand and lets Cara shove his helmet in his general direction so that he can come out, the heat of the moment and the game it had turned his frustration into give way to a different kind of playfulness.

“A wreck of a model,” he repeats, scandalised, and tries not to let himself be infected by the laugh it brings out of her, light and unrestrained and too delighted for words. “He might have been more inclined to help you out if you’d brought up some of the advantages to the ship you want.”

“Advantages?” She only laughs harder when he elbows her in the ribs on his way up and Din takes the opportunity to take her in fully – eyes still closed, face flushed in her afterglow, clothes and hair dishevelled despite her best efforts to appear collected. “But of course. If you’d let me get back to my work, I can fill another form with all the ship’s _advantages_.” He’s not going to, and he might just have found the only kind of power play he likes to get _his_ way in. “You’d get it sooner that way, probably. If I follow protocol—”

“ _Fuck_ protocol.” She’d said it herself already, so it’s acceptable, and quite frankly, he’s tired of pretending that he cares about what is acceptable and what isn’t. He’d heard enough about her new rules and restrictions and legal boundaries on his way here and it’s a mad, dangerous rush; knowing that he’s an exception.

“All right,” Cara says on another laugh, and this is thrilling, too; the realisation that he’s no longer surprised that she’d go as far for him as he would for her, time and time again. “I can live with that.”

That new rule, he _can_ understand – to keep this, he could live with _anything_.


End file.
